AI - what it might mean to you

AI - what it might mean for you

Each day that passes I seem to find a new AI related technology overcoming an incredible hurdle or outperforming our dear selves! And, that’s set to radically change how we live our lives and so I thought I’d take some time to look at some of the more amazing probabilities to lighten-up (or not!) your weekend:

AI started out around 1950 with the Turing test that involved a judge who had to communicate with two participants in different rooms. One was a machine and the other a human. The judge had to ask each room questions and figure out which was the computer. If the judge picked the human less than 50% of the time then the computer was to have been deemed intelligent. 

Over the last 20yrs, progress has been huge and below I have detailed some of these (some of which might be a little scary!)

implants will make humans better at everything.

The general thinking has been surrounding AI as a help to us humans. making us better by supporting what we want to do. If you lose a limb, AI could attach and help operate a prosthetic limb for various complex movements. 

But, perhaps combining the human and the AI we create an overall smarter and more powerful being than working independently. Future systems may work via augmented reality or by giving us sensory abilities far beyond our existing vision, hearing, and movement. For example, exoskeletons will allow us to walk when old and feeble. even retaining ur sense of hearing and sight even as our eyes and ears fail.

ai will learn

Some us may say, computers are only as good as those people that sit behind them and operate. However more recently with major advancements in AI, computers are starting to learn on their own. As an example, the US Military developed an android that learned how to cook from watching YouTube videos. The robot was able to learn the skills from visual recognition and trial & error.

And, just to keep us on our toes, there has been a self-repairing robot, even after losing two of its six legs, the robot noticed a performance drop, then using an algorithm, the robot figured out what was wrong and how to repair itself. This repair phase lasted for just a few minutes, during which time, the robot processed 13,000 possible movements, pulled from multi-billions of different behaviors. This opens up limitless possibilities including search and rescue in the most remote locations of the earth and solar system.

smarter than us?

And so with learning abilities, back in 2013, AI was deemed at the same level as a 4yr old and since then it has advanced significantly. 

By 2029, it is expected AI will be at about the level of intelligent adult humans. Beyond that, anything is pretty much possible, especially if AI can get exponentially smarter. For example, it is also believed it could lead to something called singularity, which is where humans and machines will meld into one entity.

a great poker player in the making

With its famous chess playing wins, AI became arguably its most famous. 

AI took another major step in May 2015, when Claudico, the supercomputer competed in a game of poker. The tournament lasted two weeks and 80,000 hands were played. In the end, Claudico came in fourth, and the “loss” was close enough to be considered scientifically valid, meaning that statistically, Claudico tied his human competitors. While it didn’t win, it was a big step in AI computing. The big difference between a game like poker and playing chess or Jeopardy is that poker has a lot of missing information, and bluffing is a major strategy and not a logical way of thinking.

Researchers said that the tournament was a great start and they believe that by 2020, AI will be able to beat the best players in the world. This type of AI also has a number of other applications instead of just trying to clean out casinos. The algorithms used in Claudico will be applicable anywhere there is incomplete information, including cyber security, medicine and negotiations.

keeping us safe

AI will confront the challenges of an aging population and enable greater health independence. As we have more of the population growing older, the better we can enable them to stay in their homes longer, the more happy they are, and the healthier they are, the better it is for the whole healthcare system.

We can have more home robots that can help people with these activities of daily living: Making sure people take their medicine, helping them prepare their food, making sure that if they don't get out of bed someone is notified.

And, of course the driverless cars may even bring to zero, traffic accidents and deaths. major disasters and highly dangerous situations could utilize remote AI rectification. In addition, maybe soon they'll even be flying us around?

will we become cyborgs?

Many believe in the future we will be cyborgs. Humans and Computers are rapidly becoming one cognitive unit. 

Imagine the productiveness and effectiveness if we could fuse our brains with unfailing memories and calculators. 

Imagine if skills could just be downloaded?

our best friends?

Computers and humans are very different in terms of how they think about the world. What's going to be most fascinating is the impact, positive and negative but mostly positive, on the symbiotic relationship between us.

As an example, the smartphone today and how it's helped us, made us more connected to people that we love, made it easier for us to maintain contact with information, keep track of what's happening in the world, figure out what restaurants go to next, where to watch movies. 

or just our pets?

Pets are great, but they have a number of downsides. You have to clean up after them, they can be destructive, they need to be fed, and of course, they die. Something that will take care of all those downsides is AI driven pets. they could be widely available by 2025

they says that in the next 10-15 years, developers will work on a number of aspects of AI and robotics so that manufacturers will be able to build pet-bots that people will be able to make an emotional connection with. 

lovers?

A question that’s bound to arise is that if AI is almost or completely indistinguishable from humans, will humans be able to have physical and emotional relationships with AI entities? As soon as a credible source in a major publication / platform states how amazing the sex was, it will soon become mainstream, rather than geeky!

Admittedly, it will take time, however many experts believe by 2050, human and robot marriages will be made legal. 

so machine learning at its most basic

Basically what learning is about, including machine learning, is using the past to make predictions about the future.

You might be able to predict who will start dating or who will get divorced. You can figure out when people are going to have kids sometimes by just the stuff they buy and what neighborhoods they move into. You can figure out more and more intimate details and be able to predict what each other will do.

People are already getting really good at predicting what we are going to do and then manipulating that to get us to buy things, or to vote particular ways.

but, of course there maybe downsides

Most of the world has pushed hard on the idea of knowledge workers (knowledge economy) — you should get an education, you should educate yourself and stay ahead of the changing world. That is becoming more and more difficult.

It's a sudden switch, when something becomes cheaper, when the self-driving car becomes cheaper than the human driver, immediately the whole system will flip around.

When an AI-based medical doctor becomes cheaper, why not switch all medical doctors to smart computer programs and have a few remaining human specialists for very special cases.

That's sort of one of the risks that AI people are worried about. It's a societal risk. Society will have to adapt. 

AI eruption

AI also poses an incredible threat. Many of the top minds such as Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Elon Musk believe AI could be a serious threat to our very existence.

Some believe it to be so dangerous that they compare it to the creation of nuclear weapons and it vital we get it right first time. It's therefore not surprising to note advancement has in many respects, been slowed. Containment is important because if we were to ever lose control of AI, we may never get it back. Then it’s just a matter of time, since the AI could wipe out humanity because it could calculate that humans are a virus-like being, or it could kill humans as a way of self-preservation. Essentially, AI will either fix all of our problems or destroy us all. In other words, various SciFi movies aren’t nearly as farfetched as we previously believed.

Of course, I prefer as always a more positive approach, albeit cautious and continue to look at ways to improve customer / client experiences with some of the very best brains in the industry. Either way, the future looks bright!